Domers in the News

Published: Winter 2018-19

Alan Page ’67 lost his wife, Diane, in September, making the news that followed soon after her death — that he would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom — bittersweet because so much of the work that merited the honor had been done in partnership with her. A Hall of Fame defensive lineman for the Minnesota Vikings, Page earned the nation’s highest civilian honor more for his career off the football field, including becoming the first African-American to serve as a Minnesota Supreme Court justice. Alan and Diane Page also raised more than $14 million for minority college scholarships through the Page Education Foundation. A critic of President Trump, Page told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he would put politics aside for the ceremony. “We live in a time when people would like to shed more heat than light,” he said, “and I am more interested in shedding light.” . . . Hannah Storm ’83 was half of a history-making broadcast on September 27 when she and Andrea Kremer became the first all-female team to announce a major American men’s team sporting event. Storm and Kremer called the Los Angeles Rams-Minnesota Vikings football game for Amazon Prime Video’s streaming service. The Storm-Kremer call, done remotely from a studio in Stamford, Connecticut, was one of multiple options for viewers, who could choose the standard Fox broadcast, a Spanish-language version or a United Kingdom stream. . . . It wasn’t a sports-broadcasting first, but it was a noteworthy rarity when Deb Boulac ’93 served as the lead producer for the CBS broadcast of the Denver Broncos-Houston Texans game from Mile High Stadium on Nov. 4. Boulac, who has worked with CBS Sports for two decades, became the first woman to produce an NFL game for the network since 1988 and the first among any of the league’s broadcast partners since the 1990s. “I don’t know if it was the altitude here but I was so excited that it was hard for me to remember to breathe,” Boulac told The Athletic. . . . Adm. Christopher Grady ’84 became the first four-star flag officer to have graduated from Notre Dame. Grady assumed command in May of the Richmond, Virginia-based U.S. Fleet Forces Command and U.S. Naval Forces Northern Command. Commissioned as an ensign through the Navy ROTC program, Grady previously served as commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet and the Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO, as well as deputy commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and U.S. Naval Forces Africa. . . . After leading GQ to two National Magazine Awards and a Pulitzer Prize in the past year alone, editor-in-chief Jim Nelson ’85 announced in September that he would step down at the end of 2018. His departure was one of a series of high-level editorial changes at Condé Nast, which publishes GQ. Nelson spent more than 20 years at the magazine, including 15 as editor-in-chief, focusing on longform storytelling that earned numerous awards. “Jim Nelson is everything good about magazine-making,” frequent GQ contributor Amy Wallace told TheNew York Times. . . . College Advising Corps, a North Carolina-based nonprofit founded and led by Nicole Farmer Hurd ’92, has helped an estimated 300,000 low-income and first-generation students enroll in college since 2005. Time magazine recognized Hurd on its list of “the 31 people who are changing the South.” With a goal of helping 1,000,000 underserved and underrepresented students enter college by 2025, Hurd considers her organization’s mission essential to the country’s future. “If we don’t do this,” she said, “then the American Dream is really in jeopardy.” . . . A new U.S. Marine Corps base under construction in Guam will be named for Brig. Gen. Vicente “Ben” Blaz ’51, the highest-ranking Chamorro to have served in the Marines and the island’s former delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. Blaz, who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery after his death in 2014 at age 85, served 29 years in the Corps. In 1972 he became commander of the 9th Marine Regiment, one of the units that had liberated his native Guam from occupying Japanese forces during World War II, when Blaz was a teenager. . . . Among Hollywood employees in a supporting role, Roberto Larios ’10 has made a name for himself. One of Variety’s 10 “assistants to watch,” Larios works for Amy Beecroft, a senior executive at the Verve talent and literary agency. Larios earned his notice with initiatives that promote Latino voices in creative industries, including a series of workshops for aspiring writers. . . . Becca Huffer ’12 finished 10th among 100 players in the LPGA qualifying tournament to become the first Notre Dame women’s golfer to earn a regular spot on a major professional tour. Her eight-round total of 3-under par at North Carolina’s Pinehurst No. 7 course secured the coveted LPGA tour card for the six-year veteran of the developmental Symetra Tour. . . . “Louisiana Requiem” by Heather Treseler ’10Ph.D. has received Frontier Poetry’s Summer Poetry Award “because this poem, in language lush and maternal and profound, demands it.” Connecting birth and death, the personal and the political, the poem “expands with grace, like a full womb, from the first line to the last.” This is the second award Treseler received in 2018 for poems from her current manuscript, Thesaurus for a Year of Desire. Last spring, “Beaux Arts” won the Furious Flower Poetry Prize for Emerging Writers. . . . When an erstwhile rock ’n’ roll DJ approached him about doing a podcast, Father Joe Grimaldi ’83MSA asked, “What’s a podcast?” Now he’s a veteran of dozens of episodes of “The Father Joe Podcast,” where he holds forth on all things Catholic — from miracles and guardian angels to “the elephant in the room,” the Church’s sex-abuse scandal — with retired Detroit radio host Ken Calvert. Weekly episodes can be found at thefatherjoepodcast.com. . . . Mark Madrid ’15MNA, CEO of the nonprofit Latino Business Action Network, was among the National Diversity Council’s Top Latino Leaders honored at an October luncheon in Los Angeles. Based at Stanford University, Madrid’s organization focuses on funding Latino research and educational programs with the goal of doubling by 2025 the number of Latino-owned businesses in the United States valued at $10 million or more. . . . Kyle Palmieri had 12 goals through 23 games, making him the leader for the NHL’s New Jersey Devils. Early in the season, Palmieri, who played at Notre Dame in 2008-09 before becoming a first-round draft pick, took that “leading scorer” status literally, becoming the only player in NHL history to score his team’s first goal in its first four games. . . . The October/November issue of Produced By, the official publication of the Producers Guild of America, profiled “Man on a Mission” Brian McLaughlin ’82, a writer-producer and retired Army major, for his work supporting military veterans in the entertainment industry. McLaughlin volunteers with the networking and training organization Veterans in Media and Entertainment, sponsors service members interested in joining the guild and organizes roundtables for veterans with industry professionals. . . . What do nuns do, anyway? How do they pray? How do they discern the call to a religious life and serve people once they’ve taken their vows? Answers to those questions often elude even Catholics, whose interactions with sisters have diminished along with the population of women religious. Only about 45,000 live in the U.S. today, less than half the total of 30 years ago. An online middle-school and high-school curriculum developed by Ann David ’99, Rose Radkowski ’05, ’07M.A., Katie Bugyis ’05, ’15Ph.D., Amanda Murillo ’05, ’07M.A. and current graduate student Alejandra Herrera, answers those questions and more, introducing students to the impact Catholic sisters have on their communities. Called & Consecrated: Exploring the Lives of Women Religious is a free bilingual resource available online through the National Catholic Sisters Project. . . . Veteran NPR editor and producer Kenya Young ’94 is now officially a morning person, becoming executive producer of Morning Edition in October after serving in an interim capacity for almost a year. Previously the executive producer of the weekend broadcasts of All Things Considered, Young has worked on News & Notes, Day To Day, Tell Me More and Talk of the Nation during more than a decade in public radio.